This isn’t a joke — it really happened. 

Last Friday, Jim Hackworth put together a meeting of city, county, and schools officials for the purpose of discussing extending broadband access throughout Anderson County.  The meeting was hosted by ORAU, who has the most modern conference facility I’ve ever seen.

** Note for the trolls: there was not more than one representative of any elected body, and there was no deliberation, so there aren’t any Sunshine Law problems.

ORAU’s Wayne Stevenson demonstrated some of the impressive features of their Center for Science Education, which is used for a variety of things — student field trips, teacher education (including teaching teachers how to use some of the very cool and not necessarily expensive technology), and many other things.  The tie-in between the two is that students, teachers, and parents can’t take full advantage of educational opportunities that technology can provide, if they don’t have internet access.

But beyond education, local government officials are interested because ensuring broadband internet access is key to economic development in attracting residents and businesses.  It also facilitates growth.  So city (Oak Ridge, Clinton, Norris, Lake City) and county officials alike listened with rapt attention to the possibilities.

Except one.  I guess he was bored, so he was surfing the web on the ORAU laptop provided at every seat as a feature of their impressive conference facility.  So, right in the middle of the presentation, he stumbled across the Outback Steakhouse commercial with its distinctive music blaring from the speakers.

He didn’t know how to mute the sound, so he shut the laptop as every head in the room turned to see which kid wasn’t paying attention in class.

Guess who?  (If you’ve already heard the story from someone who was there, don’t spoil it.  I know who you are.)